Spring Conferences: Round 3. I am skipping my 2nd round conference presentation, place ethnography: notes from the field. The brunt concerned institutional hurdles that field work entails, discussed at length in initial posts. My third round conference presentation is visually stunning, thanks to the liberal borrowing of images by Miguel Gandert. Ridiculously talented and globally renown, Miguel sits on my dissertation committee. His advice founded an entire conversation in this blog about history, representation and knowing.
Conferences are great things. They bring people together to a common purpose of dialogue and exchange like a round of tequila for the whole table. A toast and grimace later, everyone feels more attuned to their passions. A good conference feels like those excited conversations, it hones works -in-progress, brings ideas into focus. I discovered that my dissertation restructuring was not as well-thought as I had imagined I am still drawn to theme over straight chronology. There is a reason chronology triumphs in history. It seems self-evident, it is well-ordered, it makes sense. Theme must meet and exceed these criteria.
I am thinking out my first chapter a great deal little more for these reasons. In my first-edit professional statement for a recent fellowship application, I ended up writing a "welcome to my dissertation committee" type introduction to my own work. I changed that post, (Statement of Professional Goals) but it did remind me of what a superb and over-the-top talented committee gathered around this work. I am striving to earn a place at the foot of the table where they will be sitting and judging the quick and dead.
Next comes typology, and I will be trying to sort through people and box them up into discernible groups who share enough identity markers of one kind or another to be categorized together as modern kin. Categories are fluid and tricky things, like themes in many ways, but nailing them down as they coalesce for a historical moment is the work of scholars. I expect when I share this online I will get some shit, but hell, I have to do something to make sense of my keen observations! And this is a public research blog. At present, I will wrap-up my work with some beautifully illustrated musings...
Conferences are great things. They bring people together to a common purpose of dialogue and exchange like a round of tequila for the whole table. A toast and grimace later, everyone feels more attuned to their passions. A good conference feels like those excited conversations, it hones works -in-progress, brings ideas into focus. I discovered that my dissertation restructuring was not as well-thought as I had imagined I am still drawn to theme over straight chronology. There is a reason chronology triumphs in history. It seems self-evident, it is well-ordered, it makes sense. Theme must meet and exceed these criteria.
I am thinking out my first chapter a great deal little more for these reasons. In my first-edit professional statement for a recent fellowship application, I ended up writing a "welcome to my dissertation committee" type introduction to my own work. I changed that post, (Statement of Professional Goals) but it did remind me of what a superb and over-the-top talented committee gathered around this work. I am striving to earn a place at the foot of the table where they will be sitting and judging the quick and dead.
Next comes typology, and I will be trying to sort through people and box them up into discernible groups who share enough identity markers of one kind or another to be categorized together as modern kin. Categories are fluid and tricky things, like themes in many ways, but nailing them down as they coalesce for a historical moment is the work of scholars. I expect when I share this online I will get some shit, but hell, I have to do something to make sense of my keen observations! And this is a public research blog. At present, I will wrap-up my work with some beautifully illustrated musings...
